Monday, September 13, 2010

Last night my friends and I hosted a Yushu fundraiser dinner. Saturday and sunday we spent all day cooking. My friends, Jessica, Tashi and I made about 400 momos, 200 meat and 200 potato. We bought a nice garlic chili sauce and I also made the summer chili recipe and we made a small side salad .

We had a few disasters including sticky steamers (even when oiled) a freezer accident where a whole bunch of momos stuck together, and arriving at the venue to find no sound system set up, but in the end it was a great success.

More than a pound of chili sauce was gone to the scrapings, we we finished the evening with a handful of each kind of momos, which we gave to the staff of Emack and Bolio's who gave us their space for the evening. We earned more than $600 to donate to victims of the quake in Yushu this past April.

All in all, a cooking success story!

HUGE thanks to the Palden family, fantastic local musicians Taina Asili, Gaetano Vaccaro and David Rubin who performed, and our wonderful friend Sonam who rushed in when crises hit at the end.

Friday, September 10, 2010

I was introduced to Uyghur food in 2008, and have been addicted to it since then. Uyghur food is similar to Jewish or Turkish food, and its very unique in central Asia. One of my favorites is a rice dish, I believe called "Polu" but I am not sure. I've heard the name only in passing, but I insisted on learning how to make it. So here's another favorite of mine

Start by chopping your onions and tomatoes and shredding your carrots. I really think organic adds a lot of flavor, so if you have the choice, go with that. We used a nice heirloom tomato, which provided great flavor!

Heat up a pan with some oil. Start browning the onions and the meat together. Keep cooking until the onions have reduced.

When the onions have reduced, add chopped tomatoes.

Stir until the tomatoes have also reduced.

When the tomates are reduced, add your carrots right on top.

Now add the cinnamon and salt, stir and taste to make sure it tastes right. It should taste a bit saltier than you will like the final product, since you will be adding a lot of rice.

Once the spicing is correct, add 3 cups of water.

on top of this, well destributed, pour 2 cups of basmati rice.

Sprinkle a handful or two of golden raisins on the top.

Cover and cook on a medium flame for 25 minutes. On an electric stove, you might need to adjust this. The water should be simmering.

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What is Samma So?

In short, Samma So is a collection of Tibetan recipes (and a few other recipes I find interesting.) I hope to concentrate on recipes that you WON'T find in cookbooks or restaurants, the sort of cooking that makes you feel like you are back in Tibet, because it was the only place in the world where you could taste that delicious food.